On Work:

You Don’t Have To Do What You Love to Love What You Do.

Time and time again I hear things like “find your passion” or “do what you love” and I don’t disagree with those things. But what if you don’t know what your passion is, or, what if you don’t love what you do, but you kind of like it and it makes you happy for the most part except for those few instances where you’re stressed but it’s the good kind of stress…you know what I’m saying.

I want to dispel the myth that you need to do what you love or find your passion. Yeah, it’s true you should be happy and what you do should bring you joy, but you may not know what your “dream job” is and that’s okay. You can find joy in the work that you do even if it’s not your passion.

I would even argue that liking your co-workers and your manager are both more important when finding something that will bring you joy. You will spend the majority of your time with those people and having a great manager and/or great co-workers can be the reason you get out of bed every morning. In fact, those people can motivate you and turn something that you thought of as just a “job” into something you truly love.

It’s also just as important to find the right work-life balance that fits with your lifestyle. Do you love working ‘round the clock and pushing boundaries through intense “getting shit done” sessions? Then a casual 9–5 workplace may not be for you. Do you like to travel and take vacation? Then a workplace with a strict vacation policy may not be for you. Do you like to be home exactly at 5 to see your family and help your kids with their homework? Then a highly intense and fast-paced workplace may not be for you. More important than finding your passion, is finding a work-life balance that works for you.

And sometimes passion should be left for side projects. When I was in my first teaching job right out of college I found it very stressful at points. I taught K-6 music and the kids were sometimes a handful. I began to think whether teaching was right for me. I was excited by fashion blogs and I loved looking at magazines so I thought maybe a job in fashion would be the way to go.

I spoke to a friend about this realization and she gave me a great piece of advice: Really think about what a career in fashion is like — if you’re just interested in putting together cool looks and sharing them with the world, then turning your passion into a job may not be for you. I realized at that point that I was way more interested in devoting my time to learning and education. I was way more interested in stressing out over making sure my students got a great music education then putting together a great outfit to work ‘round the clock on something that I just did for “fun”.

And that still carries through to today. I’m much more excited about pushing the boundaries in learning than I am about sharing my outfit for the day. But, at the same time, I do still enjoy getting dressed in the morning and impressing my coworker with a creative look. Passion for fashion meets changing the world through growth mindsets in learning.

To bring it back to the above point, don’t stress if you don’t know what your passion is, or your job isn’t what you love to do in your free time. Just make sure that what you’re doing and the people you’re doing it with bring you joy and that is all the motivation you’ll need day-to-day.

And if you do have a passion and want to pursue it, I am all for that! But if turning your passion into your job isn’t what you had in mind, it’s okay to do it just for fun.

Happy Humpday and Happy Workday!

In Life and Learning,